1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a license plate lock box assembly for a motor vehicle and more particularly, to a locking box adapted to be mounted on the license plate of a motor vehicle and adapted to receive and retain notices, such as parking violation notices. A special key or unlocking device is required to gain access to the box. An identifying indicia may also be used to indicate to the law enforcement officer or traffic warden issuing the notice that the vehicle is equipped with the license plate lock box assembly.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A dramatic increase in the number of motor vehicles being operated has created a rather unique problem. As the number of motor vehicles increase, more and more traffic violations are also being committed by the operators of these vehicles. These violations or offenses against the Highway Traffic Acts in the respective jurisdictions, both local and nationwide, include both moving and stationary violations.
When a police officer or other law enforcement officer apprehends a person whom he believes has committed a violation of the traffic laws of the jurisdiction, he can easily draft and serve upon that person, the necessary summons or notice of violation. The person's name and address are easily attainable and thus, a record of the person committing the offense may be retained.
However, when the offense is a stationary violation such as a parking offense, the law enforcement officer or traffic warden, as the case may be, completes the necessary notice of violation and usually places the notice or parking ticket on the windshield of the vehicle, under the wiper blades, if possible, to prevent the ticket from blowing away from the vehicle.
The owner or the operator of the vehicle, upon his return to the vehicle, removes the notice from the windshield of the vehicle and subsequently attends to its payment in due course.
As the law enforcement officer does not know nor can he ascertain at the time of the violation, whether the operator of the vehicle at the time of the violation is the owner thereof, he completes the notice of violation by identifying the vehicle by its license plate number. This number identifies the vehicle with its registered owner who may or may not be the operator of the vehicle at the time of the violation. The law enforcement officer has no regard for who is the operator of the vehicle at the time of the violation. The parking violation is issued therefore to the owner of the vehicle and not necessarily to the person committing the offense. If the notice of violation is not settled shortly, a summons is issued after a predetermined time period subsequent to the commission of the offense but this summons issues in the name of the registered owner of the vehicle.
This problem has become particularly relevant and of great importance to the vehicle rental industry. If a vehicle is rented for a short period of time, for example, three or four days, and the operator of the vehicle commits a parking violation, he receives a notice of this violation as explained hereinbefore. However, if the operator disregards this notice or deliberately destroys the notice, and subsequently returns the vehicle to the rental company, the notice of violation or parking ticket remains unpaid.
The rental company has no method of ascertaining whether any outstanding violations have been issued during the rental period at the time the vehicle is returned. A summons subsequently issues from the appropriate authority after an interval of time but that summons is issued to the owner of the vehicle, namely, the vehicle rental agency. The company or agency is therefore liable for payment of the fine or penalty which in many cases, is more than the fine or penalty of the original parking violation. The company or agency must then look to the customer who rented the vehicle at the time of the violation for payment thereof.
Unfortunately, the vehicle rental company or agency has great difficulty in attempting to contact the person or persons renting the vehicle at the time of the violation for repayment of the fine or ticket of the traffic violation. The person who committed the offense is usually very difficult to locate and contact and usually, if located, will ignore the request for payment from the rental company or deny the commission of the offense.
If the rental company wishes to pursue the offender or if it wishes to sue the offender for the amount of money of the ticket, large administration and legal costs may be incurred which do not justify the action. Also, considerable bad publicity for the agency may be created. Thus, rental companies tend to write off the cost of these tickets which represents a considerable loss each year.
In addition to the deliberate ignoring of the violation notice or the deliberate destruction thereof, it is also possible that the notice of violation was removed from the vehicle prior to the operator returning thereto by a third party or by inclimate weather. In these cases, the operator, who may be willing to pay for any fines for violations incurred during the rental period, is totally unaware of the notice of violation and the offense committed.
The rental company does not become aware of the violation until it receives a summons at a subsequent date which may be too late to pursue the customer for payment. Again, the rental agency will incur a loss for these tickets.